Embassy to Team Sirius

[2metraninja]

I found this in our mail. They are proposing us to fight coordinated and share the captured land.

For me, the best our move is to pretend we moved our army in answer to their call and no matter what happens, we can pretend for a land on Comet. This happens to perfectly match with the timing of our army appearance.

M&M war
Team Sirius
to quatronia10, me
show details Feb 14 (4 days ago)

Hail Amazon and Quatronia

I'm in charge for the war efforts and i'd like to coordinate our actions.
I'd like also to discuss possible new land sharing, to avoid any repercussion in future.

A coordinate plan can definetely keep the Mavs in their home island, with no hope to put out their nose again.

To avoid lost time, my first war action will be... build a road in that desert tile, so we can speed up our reinforcements.
The second... ahh yes, move the stack.

Plase let me know your thoughts, so we can start plan the best path and so on.

FYI, i'm in GMT-1.

Best regards,
Blubmuz, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[2metraninja]

Another mail. Seems Q did not answered to Sirius appeal. We can pretend we did not answered officially by the diplomatic way, but the General was issued orders to move our army to Comet immediately and in the meantime we had discussions about the best way to wage the war and then how to divide the captured land.

So, basically, we can tell them that we stand side by side with Sirius with our army from the first their call, and we left the talking and dividing for a bit later.

Actually, now is the time we to claim what we deserve. i.e. - to capitalize our military might.

Sommers, can you compose a letter to be sent?

Coordinate our efforts

Team Sirius
to me, Quatronia

show details Feb 16 (3 days ago)

Hail Amazon and Quatronia,
i haven't seen any answer to my previous mail and next turn begins in some 7 hours from now.

I think that coordinating our war efforts is the key to quickly destroy M&M.
Please give me an answer.

I apologize, but i mistyped my time zone. I'm in GMT+1 (Italy)

Best regards and best luck for the war!
Blubmuz, on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[Sommerswerd]

Capture the city first... Then we can respond to their message from a position of strength. I will work on what to say to them.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think it is ironic how before when Merlot and Mavs were double-teaming us, Sirius had no desire to contribute any units to the efforts against M&M, but now they think a "co-ordinated" attack and a "land-sharing" agreement is best.

How can we share Mavs home island with them and Q? How can we share Comet? They know Comet is too far away from us for any effective sharing. The only thing we can do is trade cities we capture on Comet for cities that are closer to us on Anjennida.

Q are not responding, because Q are not interested in sharing land on Comet. To the Q, Comet belongs to them, just as Bode belongs to Sirius, Troisland belongs to CDZ and Marthaton belongs to us. A land-sharing agreement means that Q loses the game, plain and simple, because they will never have enough land to be competitive. They are already in 4th place with no room to expand.

The Cold-War treaty prevents Q from expanding on Hoag, and Mavs have overrun Comet. They are trapped. That is why they are furiously slaving an army to hurry up and capture Comet before Sirus and we do it... But it is too late, They will most likely have to give up their positions on Hoag to get Comet, and then be promptly attacked by CDZ after CDZ gives up MHI to us. Sirius will end up with Mavs home island, but only after a brutal struggle.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think the way forward is to capture Option B, then write seperate letters to Sirius and Q. The letter to Sirius should say that we just got their letter but the orders to take the city had already been voted on. Since Mavs were still flourishing, we assumed that the alliance was expecting us to destroy Mavs, which is why we were moving against them. Then we say we are willing to cooperate to destroy M&M and give them a choice between two approaches:

Choice 1 - They move their army and ships through the Canal (Nabaxica or a fort we build) for a combined Assault on MHI first. Q continues to keep Mavs occupied. Once Merlot is defeated, we do the same thing to Mavs together. We divide the land once the dust settles.

It makes more sense to co-operate to kill Merlot first, because Merlot is smaller, already contained on MHI and has all the infrastruture for generating the M&M's tech.

Choice 2 - They attack Mavs with Q first, and we keep Merlot occupied. Once Mavs are destroyed, we all dogpile Merlot together. We divide the land after the enemies are dead.

Obviously they will pick choice 2, which is really not a choice, it is just status quo... ie keep doing what we were already doing... but this way it looks like it is THEIR plan we are following after friendly co-ordination. If they happen to actually pick choice 1, great! Then we really make out good because Merlot will be wiped out, giving us a jump on developing MHI.

Letter to Q will say that we recognize their interest in Comet, and their need to posses Comet in order to remain competitive. We tell them we are attacking Comet because Mavs were flourishing, and funneling money to Merlot, and we had to act to put a stop to it. We were concerned that Mavs had become too powerful for them to defeat. We plan to help them fight Mavs by fighitng Mavs units and capturing Mavs cities, which we will glady trade to them later on to protect their position on Comet.

This will butter Q up to what is coming... ie an offer to trade Hoag cities for Comet cities.

I will draft the letters today after the city is taken.

 

[2metraninja]

How can we share Mavs home island with them and Q? How can we share Comet? They know Comet is too far away from us for any effective sharing. The only thing we can do is trade cities we capture on Comet for cities that are closer to us on Anjennida.

I think they either want to lure us with promisses of share of the spoil into helping them and then just dividing Comet and MavsHI equally with Q, or they want to prepare Q for taking lesser part of the spoil, while keeping MavsHI for themself and somewhat dividing Comet, giving Q a bit more of it.
What you said about the shceme of us giving cities we capture on Comet to Q in exchange of Q giving cities on Hoag to CDZ and CDZ leaving the whole MHI to us will work best for us, but this leaves the question of how we will actually take MHI. I guess Sirius is making this math, that they will have MavsHI way before us taking MHI and will have huge advantage over us and the other teams. We must bound this kind of agreement with all the teams promissing to help us in the war with Merlots if not even wanting to coordinated attack on MHI after the secure Comet and before we attack MavsHI.

 

[2metraninja]

I will draft the letters today after the city is taken.

The city cant be taken today - there are almost 15 hours left on the timer. Either I must put an allarm to wake up in 5 AM my time and take it, or if this time suits you better and you are available, you can log in and just take it after promoting our trebuchets to triple CR

Sirius are in position to take the city too on the next turn, so we must race with them. Not very nice, but in terms of the hidden competition, this will be our best move.

If they decide we tricked them by taking the city before them with login in the first minutes of the timer, they can decide to move their army away and leave our army vulnerable to Mavs counterattack, which can occure in the next turn or 2. So we have narrow window of time for negotiating and actually coordinating war plans once the city is taken.

 

[2metraninja]

Letter to Q will say that we recognize their interest in Comet, and their need to posses Comet in order to remain competitive. We tell them we are attacking Comet because Mavs were flourishing, and funneling money to Merlot, and we had to act to put a stop to it. We were concerned that Mavs had become too powerful for them to defeat. We plan to help them fight Mavs by fighitng Mavs units and capturing Mavs cities, which we will glady trade to them later on to protect their position on Comet.

Very good argumentation. We care not only for our own interests, but we come as messiah to defeat the evil and otherwise invincible Mavs, and we are even keen to share the spoil.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I think they either want to lure us with promisses of share of the spoil into helping them and then just dividing Comet and MavsHI equally with Q, or they want to prepare Q for taking lesser part of the spoil, while keeping MavsHI for themself and somewhat dividing Comet, giving Q a bit more of it.

Q would be fools to accept such a deal, and they will welcome any offer from us that helps them keep from being dominated by Sirius. Notice Q have their own stack next to Option B and could possibly take the city themselves next turn, but since their stack is small and they have no siege in it, they will lose many more soldiers, and they have no hope of withstanding Mavs counterattack.

The city cant be taken today - there are almost 15 hours left on the timer. Either I must put an allarm to wake up in 5 AM my time and take it, or if this time suits you better and you are available, you can log in and just take it after promoting our trebuchets to triple CR .

I dont know if I will be awake when the turn rolls... probably will be around midnight for me. But I dont see how we can negotiate with Sirius for the city... Obviously they want it as it is closer to them, and they have a larger, better force in the area... we cant let them have it, because it is part of our plan to negotiate with CDZ.

If they decide we tricked them by taking the city before them with login in the first minutes of the timer, they can decide to move their army away and leave our army vulnerable.

What we can say to them after taking the city is we will take this city and they can move to the next one, because they have a larger force, then we can offer the city to Q and with our units combined with the ones Q has in the area, the city should be safe from counter-attack, especially if Sirius presses forward.

If Sirius army leaves Comet, then they will seem like cowards, seeking to let Q fight alone while they continue to grow uncontested. If Sirius retreats after we take the city, then it will be obvious to Q (and everyone) that Sirius was not seeking to help Q at all, but instead just trying to steal a quick, easy, city from Q's land (Comet). This will make it easy to turn Q against Sirius later if it comes to that.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sent this note via PM to a bunch of Sirians to make sure they have an explanation for our actions before they do too much discussion. We also needed to update them about Banking since they asked about it before.

We sent you gmail about Comet. Also we will get Banking in 3 turns.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sent this to Sirius:

Greetings Sirians,

Just letting you know that we have completed our Anjennida libraries as promised. Thank you again for your patience.

Team AMAZON

 

[Sommerswerd]

This was in our gmail box...

Team Sirius to Quatronia, team cdz, me
show details Feb 28 (9 days ago)

Since Amazon has completed Banking, Sirius is now researching Replaceable Parts.

We already requested/recieved Replaceable Parts, from Sirius, after which they quickly finished Liberalism, and transferred that to us as well.

Sirius used the Liberalism free tech to get Steam Power, so now they can build their special building (Dikes). I requested it from them, but I was hoping they would get Rifling. I also requested Marble for Versailes, as they have finished Taj Mahal. It was pretty selfish for them to get Steam Power, which benefits only them, as opposed to Rifling which would have benefited everyone.

Anyway Sirius offered to trade us Mirza (Plague), the city they just captured from under our noses in exchange for Option B. I rejected the trade, even though it is a much much better city (roughly the same as the Sirius city "Rigel" on Anjennida) already developed, with flood plains and Marble.

I rejected the trade, because 1.)I did not hear anything about this trade beforehand, 2.) The city is much too far away from our other cities, and 3.) They stole the city from us...It is an insult for them to now try to trade it back to us ... From the looks of it, what they did was wait for us to approach the city... and absorb all the damage, killing all the units, and then rush in from behind along roads, with 2 Currasiers and take the city.

So they know that we are really entitled to the city and they are not entitled to anything in exchange, because we did ALL the fighting. So I would rather let them keep the city and we keep our honor/ moral high ground... this insult gives us just cause to attack them later. The city is ours... if they do not give the city to us for free, then we should not accept it on any other terms. This insult plus the insult of not getting Rifling for the alliance... Their debts can be paid later in blood.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This came via PM

Greetings, Amazonian allies!

I just logged in and you should now have Steam Power as you requested.

I did not accept your request for marble, because I have not been around as much recently, so I was unsure of our current plans. We will get back to you about that shortly.

Best regards,

Trystero

I responded that we need Marble to build Versailes and re-requested it:

Hello Sirian Friends,

As mentioned to you previously, we need Marble to finish Versailes Palace, and we were waiting for you to finish Taj Mahal as per your request. Congrats to you on finishing it, as well as the Mausoleum of Mausolos.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Got this PM from Blubmuz... basically it says they wont gift us Marble, and they are offering to trade Miraz for Spot B again. I will start drafting a letter to explaining we cant accept that and why.

I'll log-in now and reject the trade.

Hello Amazon allies, we're now preparing a message for you where we put on the table more important questions.

But let me explain the "marble thing".

We need it now, so we can't lend it to you for awhile.

I already proposed in game the cities exchange and i think it's more than fair.

The former Mavericks' marble city is better than SpotB and less pressed by our culture, being on a corner.

If you accept the exchange we both gain a resource we now lack.

I'm sure you understand.

Ciao, B.

 

[Sommerswerd]

So now we know that they really really wanted Spot B all along... Which is why they were frantically trying to contact us before we captured it. This little gambit that they just pulled was therefore an obvious desperate attempt to gain some leverage to negotiate for Spot B.

This is what I will say back to them:

Dear Siran Friends,

We have recently recieved two communiques from your wise countrymen Trystero and Blubmuz, regarding our latest request for Marble. Blubmuz told me that Sirius still needs the Marble, despite having completed the Taj Mahal. This was disappointing to us, as we were postponing our Wonder construction project, waiting for the Sirians to finish Taj Mahal. Meanwhile, the Sirians have built two Wonders using the Marble, one of which we had no prior notice of. Had we known your long term plans for Marble, we would have continued our project without it. We will therefore reluctantly resume construction sans-Marble, but we would like to give our Sirian neighbors a friendly reminder of our SAP treaty, which provides in relevant part.

Section 8. Wonders

8.1. Both members agree be open with each other about plans to build World Wonders, to avoid duplication and the tension that could arise from secretly competing against each other.

If we have overlooked some message concerning the Sirians' plans to build the second Wonder, I apologize in advance. Additionally, we completely understand that, the Marble is yours, to use as you see fit, and we respect this, although we would like to remind you that this was one of the distinctions we pointed out when we were attempting to persuade you that your proposed Anjennida dotmap gave you the much more favorable land. One example, is that Marble has proved to be an extremely valuable resource, as we knew, and predicted it would be.

We noticed that the Sirians, in their wisdom, used the Liberalism free-tech to get Steam Power. We congratulate you on now being able to build your special building, which undoubtedly will serve your nation well. The AMAZON was hoping and expecting that you would have chosen Rifling which would have greatly benefitted all the ETTT allies in our fight against the Candy-Axis, but again, this was your choice and we respect you decision completely.

Finally, and most importantly, we simply can not accept your offer to trade us Mirza in exchange for Option B. If you wish to gift it to us as a sign of respect and friendship, then we will happily accept, but we can not, in good conscience, agree to any trade for the city. Please be aware that we recognize that Mirza is a much better city, very similar to the Sirius city "Rigel" on Anjennida, already developed, with flood plains and Marble, while Option B is an undeveloped jungle city.

However, we also recognize that The AMAZON fought and died for that city, defeating over 12 Maverick defenders in their bloody suicide assault on our forces. Many, many AMAZON warriors were killed and/or wounded taking that city and only AFTER the battle was won, and the foes were routed and utterly defeated, did the Sirians rush in from behind with fast-moving units and stab the last lonley defender through the heart, quickly planting the Sirian flag. This was a most grave insult to The AMAZON, and an insult to the brave warriors who died to capture that city.

Therefore, we regard the city as ours. If the Sirians are not willing to to unconditionally respect our claim to the city, then we will simply withdraw, and respect your claim to the city as required by our SAP treaty. While we are willing to accept the fact that the wiley Sirians outmanuvered us in the physical capture of the city, we must express our dismay at the insult of being offered a "trade" for a city that rightfully belongs to us.

As a lesser matter, we would also like to mention the following to our wise Sirian friends:

1. Mirza is much too far away from our other cities, to be viable for us unless we maintain possesion of Option B. Without Option B, Mirza would be far too isolated and remote for us to accept. For this reason, the idea that Sirius should take Option B because the city is "closer" to Sirius is without merit. Option B is far closer to The AMAZON than Mirza, and Mirza is far closer to Sirius than Mirza is to The AMAZON.

2. The idea that trading these two cities "gives us both a needed resource" is illusory and totally without merit. The AMAZON is already providing the Sirians with Ivory, and the Sirians could just as easily provide The AMAZON with Marble in 5 turns, when the borders of Mirza expand, giving Sirius two sources of Marble. In fact, the Sirians' CRE trait means that they will gain access to the second Marble much faster than we could. Therefore, exchanging the cities is not any more necessary to give The AMAZON Marble, than it is to give Sirius Ivory.

3. It has been suggested by some AMAZONs that the Sirians would attempt to justify this insult over Mirza as "retalliation" for our initial capture of Option B. We find this reasoning totally bankrupt of merit however, as the Sirians spilled absolutely no blood fighting the defenders of Option B. Therefore, there can be no comparison between the two.

As has been said previously, if Sirius does not wish to respect our claim to the city, then we will depart in peace and friendship. We absolutely can not offer anything in trade for the city. We do not wish this matter to become an open wound in our Alliance, so let us move our attention to other things, namely, the swift destruction of the Candy-Axis. If the Sirians wish to respect our claim, simply offer the city to us in-game.

Sommerswerd, Captain of The AMAZON

Sent via Gmail

 

[2metraninja]

Very good argumentation and strong stand.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Here is Sirius response:

Greetings friends of the Amazon.

Firstly a personal apology. While still keeping an eye on this game, I had been gradually drifting away from it for a variety of reasons, ranging from other interests (e.g. discovering Fall From Heaven and joining a PBEM for it on another board), real life things (e.g. I just had a second child a few weeks ago) and in game reasons (e.g. losing touch with the micromanagement, and getting quite frustrated with an unrelated but tirelessly ongoing debate within the team).

However I was still following what was happening, and was content because things seemed to be going along well enough. Until now anyway. Your latest correspondence came as an absolute lightning bolt of confirmation in the dead centre of my already starting to come to realise that things were in fact completely going to pot on the diplomatic front. So, I am taking it upon myself to fix the situation up, and am resolved not to let it slip again in the future. This is really of no interest to you in a way, but I offer solely as an explanation of the mixed messages you are currently getting from us at the moment.

Mirza
First, the Mirza situation. I was unaware of any city poaching going on, as this is not the sort of strategy we have talked about employing. So I asked quite frankly what was going on. The answer was in our own logs, the post describing the plans to take the city:

I logged in and seen the Mavs' cities empties, but a LB in the Plague.
They deleted all their units. Not fair to do so with workers, i think. But they favoured us.

Basically, he logged into the game, saw an empty city, and, wisely or otherwise, came to the conclusion that Mavericks must have deleted (or at least removed?) their units from the city for some reason. Apparently others in the team knew better but communication was poor. It's a somewhat bizarre excuse I'm sure, but like they say truth is stranger than fiction.

At the end of the day, this should have been a co-operative effort in taking the city, not a poaching. That the city is out of Maverick hands however is to the good on the whole, and everything else should be able to be rectified.

As for what to do about it, we are frankly warmed by your polite response to the situation and willingness to leave the city in our hands. However, we would like to put this right. The best way to go about this is not entirely clear to me, not least because it's been a while since I logged into the game and I'm not familiar with the area involved. Any proposed solution will also take some discussion within the team. But we assure you that we do not wish to create a situation where we are unco-operatively racing to capture cities first and sponge of each other's efforts.

We had a desire for our military general (Blubmuz) to work closely with your generals to plan out this war against Mavericks in greater detail. Previous military failures against Mavericks were blamed partly on a lack of co-ordination between teams. Our intention was to set up some sort of fast collaboration whereby we knew what each other's plans were on that spoke each turn. However, his attempts to set up this sort of collaboration on this were frustrated. It is clear that this sort of closer co-ordination would have avoided this mixup in Mirza. Whether our intent here was badly communicated, our suggestion undesirable or the relevant people simply unavailable to follow through on it is not clear, but it's worth us sorting this out.

So I'll restart the proposal from scratch. Would you like to set up some process by which our general can work with yours on a turn by turn basis to co-ordinate our efforts and avoid both problems like Mirza and costly tactical mistakes in the future? If so, who should we talk to, and how should we go about setting it up? If not, do you have some proposals for how we can avoid this sort of issue escalting into future problems? I will think over this matter myself as well.


Technology, Rifling and Steam Power

As you noticed a decision was made to claim the more expensive Steam Power technology with Liberalism rather than Rifling. We are however still researching Rifling at the moment, and it will be complete in only 3 turns from now.


Marble, Wonders

First, my apologies for not informing you of our MoM plans. It's primarily a product of my own distance from the game, and others not really taking it upon themselves to think about that sort of thing. I hope we did not disrupt any plans of your own, although I apologise in either case.

Currently, our turn players are reluctant to trade marble because we are busily building both Heroic and National Epics. However, I think you have a fair claim on the marble and have been treated disrespectfully in being denied it, so I intend to try and convince them to trade it immediately. Hopefully you will see the fruits of those efforts in-game soon, otherwise I will at least figure out as close a date as possible to transfer it, let you know what it is, and stick to it.


Finally, again I apologise for the divided front and mixed messages you are getting from us at the moment. I intend to rectify this situation however, from now and into the future, and if I fail to do so I will at least step down and encourage someone to officially take my place rather than just filling in for my absence. We thank you again for your polite and co-operative handling of this situation.

Irgy on behalf of Team Sirius

 

[2metraninja]

Irgy is a reasonable guy to me, but the message is blah-blah-blah - we apology, but what is ours stays ours, maybe in the future we can coordinate better.
What should we do in this case?

 

[Sommerswerd]

What should we do in this case?

I agree, its just an empty apology... So we swarm Comet with settlers and quickly claim all remaining land... we have to because this latest message means they feel its first-grab- first-serve. They say we didn't coordinate... this is just lies because we responded with a plan for military coordination which they ignored. This is proof that they only wished to quickly claim Comet (specifically Option B). To them, "coordination" means that they get Option B. That's why they ignored us after we captured it.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Sirius gifted us Marble, but then they requested a gift of Sheep. I accepted both deals but we should treat this as an exchange of Marble for Sheep... no Marble, no Sheep